The Anglo-American sabbath : an essay read before the National Sabbath Convention, Saratoga, August 11, 1863 / by Philip Schaff

Doc. No. XXVI.

THE ANGLO-AMERICAN SABBATH.

AX ESSAY READ BEFORE

THE NATIONAL SABBATH CONVENTION,

Saratoga, August 11, 18G3.

By the Rev. PHILIP SCHAPF, P. B.,

PROFESSOR IN THE THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY, MERCERSBURG, PA.

ON INVITATION OF

TIIE NEW YORK SABBATH COMMITTEE.

1. The Anglo-American Theory of the Sabbath.

The Sabbath, or weekly day of holy rest, is, next to the
family, the oldest institution which God established on earth
for the benefit of man. It dates from paradise, from the state
of innocence and bliss, before the serpent of sin had stung its
deadly fangs into our race. The Sabbath, therefore, as well
as the family, must have a general significance: it is rooted
and grounded in the physical, intellectual, and moral constitu-
tion of our nature as it came from the hands of its Creator,
and in the necessity of periodical rest for the health and well-
being of body and soul. It is to the week what the night is to
the day — a season of repose and reanimation. It is, originally,
not a law, but an act of benediction — a blessing and a comfort
to man.

The Sabbath was solemnly reaffirmed in the Mosaic legisla-
tion as a primitive institution, with an express reference to the
creation and the rest of God on the seventh day, in completing
and blessing his work,* and at the same time with an additional

* Prof. Fairbairn, Typology of;Scripture, Vol. II. p. 120, (second edition,
1858,) makes the remark: “It «*vms as if God, in the appointment of this
law, had taken special precautions against the attempts which he foresaw
would be made to get free of the Institution, and that on this account he laid
its foundations deep in the original framework and constitution of nature.”

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2 27(<’ Anglo-American Sabbath.

reference to the typical redemption from the bondage of
Egypt.* It was embodied, not in the ceremonial and civil,
but in the moral law, which is binding for all times, and rises
in sacred majesty and grandeur far above all human systems
of ethics, as Mount Sinai rises above the desert, and the pyra-
mids of Egypt above the surrounding plain. There the Sab-
bath law still stands on the first table, as an essential part of
that love to God which is the soul and sum of all true religion
and virtue, and can as little be spared as any other of the
sacred ten — the number of harmony and completeness. Dimi-
nution here is necessarily mutilation, and a mutilation not of
any human system of legislation or ethics, but of God’s own
perfect code of morals. Let us remember that the fourth, like
every other of the ten commandments, was immediately spoken
by the great Jehovah, and that under an overwhelming and
unparalleled display of divine majesty; that it was even writ-
ten by his own finger — written not on paper, like the rest of
the Pentateuch, but upon tables of stone — the symbol of dura-
bility; that it wTas preserved in the most sacred place of the
tabernacle; that it was emphatically “a sign between Jehovah
and his people ;”f that it received the express sanction of
Christ and his apostles, when they comprehended all the laws
of God and the duties of man under the great law of love to
God and to our neighbour, and declared that the gospel, far
from overthrowing the law, establishes and fulfils it. The
Saviour, according to his own solemn declaration, came not to
destroy the law or the prophets, but to fulfil. J He was neither
a revolutionist nor a reactionist, but a reformer in the highest
sense of the term ; he reenacted the law of Sinai from the
mount of beatitudes with the fulness of the gospel blessing, as
the fundamental c arter of his heavenly kingdom; he explained,
deepened, and spi; itualized its meaning, satisfied its demands,
delivered us from its curse, infused into it a new life, and
enables us, by his Holy Spirit, to keep it, in imitation of his
own perfect example.

Finally, the Jewish Sabbath rose with the Saviour from the
grave, as a new creation, on the morning of the resurrection,
with the fulness of the gospel salvation, and descended with

* Deut. v. 15. f Ezek. xx. 12. $ Matt. v. 17-19. Comp. Rom. iii. 31.

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the Holy Ghost from his exalted throne of glory on the day of
Pentecost; to be observed as the Christian Sabbath, as “the
Lord’s day,” in his church to the end of time. s Its temporary,
ritual form was abolished, its moral substance was preserved
and renewed. The Jewish Sabbath was baptized with fire and
the Holy Ghost — it was Christianized and glorified. Hence-
forward it was emphatically the commemoration day of the
resurrection, or of the new spiritual creation and the accom-
plished redemption, and hence a day of sacred joy and thanks-
giving, “the pearl of days,” the crown and glory of the week,
and a foretaste and pledge of the eternal Sabbath in heaven.

“A clay of sweet refection,

A day of sacred love ;

A day of resurrection

From earth to heaven above.”

The Sabbath, then, rests upon a threefold basis — the original
creation , the Jewish legislation , and the Christian redemption.
It answers the physical, moral, and religious necessities of man.
It is supported by the joint authority of the Old and the New
Testament, of the law and the gospel. It has still a twofold
legal and evangelical aspect, and we must keep both in view in
order to do justice to its character and aim. Like the law in
general, the fourth commandment is both negative and positive,
prohibitive and injunctive; it is to all men a mirror of God’s
holiness and our own sinfulness; to the unconverted a whole-
some restraint, and a schoolmaster to lead them to Christ, and
to the converted a rule of holy obedience. But the Sabbath is
also a gospel institution: it was originally a gift of God’s
goodness to our first parents before the fall; it “was made for
man,”* and looks to his physical and spiritual well-being; it
was “a delight” to the pious of the old dispensation,! and now
under the new dispensation it is fraught with the glorious
memories and blessings of Christ’s triumph over sin and death,
and of the outpouring of the Holy Ghost ; it is the connecting
link of creation and redemption, of paradise lost and paradise
regained; a reminiscence of the paradise of innocence, and an
anticipation of the paradise in heaven that can never be lost.

* Mark ii. 2’

f Isaiah lviii. 23.

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The Anglo-American Sabbath.

“It is the day which the Lord hath made; we will rejoice and
be glad in it.”* Rest in God is the end of all creationf — not
the rest of inaction, but the rest of perfection and benediction,
which is one with the highest spiritual activity and joy in
unbroken peace and harmony. To this rest the Sabbath
points and prepares us from week to week ; it is — to borrow
freely some expressions from an English poem of the seven-
teenth century j; — heaven once a week ; the next world’s glad-
ness prepossessed in this; a day to seek eternity in time; a
lamp that lights man through these dark and dreary days; the
rich aud full redemption of the whole week’s flight; the milky
way chalked out with suns; the pledge and cue of a full rest,
and the outer court of glory.

This, in brief positive statement, is the Anglo-American , as
distinct from the European-Continental , theory on the Sab-
bath, which forms the basis for its practical observance. The
difference between the two is general and radical, and strikes
the attention of every traveller in its practical effects. There
are a few' distinguished writers in England, as Milton, Arnold,
Whately, Alford, Ilessey, who hold substantially the Conti-
nental view; as there are, on the other hand, some divines and
ministers on the Continent — and their number is increasing —
who, with slight modifications, adopt the Anglo-American view,
and still more who, while differing from the theory, fully
approve of the corresponding practice. But these are the
exception, not the rule.

The Anglo-American theory is sometimes called the legal-
istic or Sabbatarian theory, as distinct from the Dominican
or evangelical , which bases the Sabbath exclusively on the
fact of the resurrection of Christ ; and from the ecclesiastical
or traditional theory, which bases it on the authority and custom
of the church. But we protest against the term, as one-sided
and liable to misunderstanding; strictly speaking, it applies
only to the Jewish and the Seventh-Day Baptist theory. The
genuine Anglo-American theory, as we understand and defend
it, is evangelical as well as legal; it combines what is true in the
other theories, which are wrong, not in what they positively

* Ps. cxviii. 24.

t Heb. iii. 11, iv. 1 — 11.

J Henry Vaughan.

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affirm, but in what they deny and exclude. It embraces the
whole truth of the Sabbath, in its physical, moral, and religious
aspects, while the other theories represent merely a fragment
of it, and ensure only a small portion of the benefit which
emanates from the institution in its integrity and completeness.
The Anglo-American theory agrees with the evangelical theory
in making the resurrection of the Lord the main— though not the
only — basis of the Christian Sabbath or Lord’s day; and it
agrees with the ecclesiastical theory in honouring the universal
custom of the church of all ages — as an additional, though by
no means the only or chief, support of its authority. But it
differs from both by going back to the primitive creation as the
first natural basis of the Sabbath, and in holding to the per-
petual obligation of the fourth commandment, as the legal
basis of its authority.

2. Objections answered.

We will now notice the objections which are urged against the
Anglo-American theory, not only from the open enemies of the
Sabbath, but also from the champions of the ecclesiastical and
evangelical — or rather ultra- and pseudo-evangelical theories.
The objections are directed mainly against the legal feature
of the true theory, or the alleged perpetuity of the fourth
commandment. They would indeed have force, and drive us
logically to the alternative of either giving up the Sabbath, or
of adopting the view of the Seventh-Day Baptists, if we based
the authority of the Sabbath exclusively on the decalogue; but
this, as already remarked, is not the genuine American view, as
held by our leading divines of the present day. We make as
much account of the resurrection of the Saviour in this con-
nection, as the strongest champions of the evangelical view can
possibly do; only, while holding fast to this New Testament
basis, we do not destroy the old foundation, which was laid by
the same eternal and unchangeable God, who raised Christ from
the dead, and thereby completed the new spiritual creation.

1. It is objected, first, that the fourth commandment alone
required a positive enactment, while all the other command-
ments of the decalogue are coextensive in their obligation with
reason and conscience. But a law may be positive, and yet

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generally binding. So is the law of monogamy, which is
equally primitive with the institution of the Sabbath, and yet
was equally disregarded by heathens and Mohammedans, and
fell even into gross neglect among the Jews, until Christ
restored it in its primitive purity and force. AVhere is the
Christian who would on this account defend polygamy, which
destroys the dignity of woman, and undermines the moral
foundation of the family?

The fourth commandment, however, by pointing back to the
creation, gives the Sabbath at the same time a place in the
order of nature. It is not so much a new commandment, as
the solemn reenactment of an institution as old as man himself.
It antedates Judaism, and therefore survives it; it combines the
three elements of a permanent Christian institution, being
rooted in the order of nature, enacted by positive legislation,
and confirmed by the gospel of Christ.

2. The second objection is derived from the change of day
from the seventh to the first, under the Christian dispensation.
But this change is at best a mere matter of form, and does not
touch the substance of the commandment. The law itself does
not expressly fix on the last day of the week ; it only requires
six days for labour, and every seventh day, not necessarily the
seventh day, (dies septenus, not dies Septimus ,) for the rest of
worship. It undoubtedly establishes the week of seven days as
a divine order, and it would be altogether wrong to substitute
a decade for it, as the French, during a short period of mad-
ness, tried to do and failed. The number seven (three and
four) has a symbolical significance throughout the whole Bible,
being the number of the covenant, or of the union of God with
man, as three is the number of the Divinity, four the number
of the world or mankind, ten the number of completeness and
harmony. All days, in themselves considered, are equal before
God,* and the selection of the particular day of the week for
holy purposes depends on divine facts and commandments. In
the Old Testament it was determined by the creation and the
typical redemption ; in the new dispensation by the resurrec-
tion and full redemption of Christ. The gospel only changed
the ceremonial or ritual form of the Sabbath law, but preserved

* Rom. xiv. 5.

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The Anglo-American Sabbath.

and renewed its moral substance. It is also worthy of remark,
that the first Sabbath of the world, although the last day in the
history of God’s creation, was in fact the first day in the
history of man, who was made on the sixth day, as the crowning
work of God.

3. A third objection is taken from the general spirit of the
Christian religion, which it is said abolished the Jewish distinc-
tion of sacred and profane times and places, and regards all
time as sacred to God, and every place of the universe as his
dwelling. But this argument closely pressed would turn every
week-day into a Sabbath, and give us seven Sabbaths for one.
This, for all practical purposes, proves too much for the anti-
sabbatists. It anticipates an ideal state of another and better
world. There is, indeed, an eternal Sabbath in heaven, which
remaineth for the people of God. But while we live on earth,
we must, by the necessities of our nature, and by God’s own
express direction, labour as well as rest, and do all our work,
with the exception of one day in the week, when we are per-
mitted to rest from our work, in order to do the work of God,
and to prepare ourselves for the eternal rest in heaven. Let
us by all means give to God as much of the week as we can,
and let us do all our secular work for the glory of God, and
thus consecrate all our time on earth to his holy service; but
let us not, under the vain delusion of serving him better, with-
hold from him even that day which he has reserved for his
special service. Let us raise the week-days, as much as we
can, to the sanctity of the Sabbath, instead of bringing down
the Sabbath to the level of ordinary work-days. Our theory,
far from secularizing the week-days, has a tendency to elevate
them, by bringing them under the hallowed influence of the
Lord’s day; while the pseudo-evangelical theory has just the
opposite effect in practice; it cries out, spirit, but with the
masses it ends in flesh; it vindicates liberty, but it favours law-
lessness, which is death to all true freedom. There is a false
evangelism as well as a false legalism, and the one is just as
unchristian and pernicious as the other.

As regards intrinsic holiness, all times and seasons, as well
as all labour and rest, are alike. This we fully grant. How
could we otherwise defend the change of the day from the

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seventh to the first, or answer the obvious astronomical objec-
tions? God undoubtedly fills all time, as he fills all space.
But God is also a God of order; he has constituted man a
social being, and fitted him for public as well as private wor-
ship, which, like every other act of a finite being, must be
regulated by the laws of time and space. There is no more
superstition in holding to sacred seasons, than there is in
holding to sacred places, provided it be not done in an exclu-
sive and abstract sense. Both are equally necessary and
indispensable for the maintenance of social and public worship.
We all know that the omnipresent Jehovah may be worshipped
in the silent chamber, in the lonely desert, and the dark cata-
comb, as well as in the temple of Jerusalem and on the Mount
Gerizim. But shall we on that account destroy our churches
and chapels, or desecrate them by turning them into “houses of
merchandise”? The objection we have under consideration,
falsely assumes, that the consecration of particular days to God
necessarily tends to secularize the other days, when just the
contrary is the case. The keeping of the Sabbath, far from
interfering with the continual service of God, secures, pre-
serves, promotes, and regulates it. The meaning of the Sab-
bath law is, not that we should give to God the seventh part of
our time only, but at least. So we should pray “without
ceasing,” according to the apostle’s direction; but this, instead
of annulling, only increases the obligation of devoting at least
a certain time of every day to purposes of private devotion. It
is not by neglecting, but by strictly observing, the custom of
morning and evening prayers, that we can make progress
towards our final destination, when our whole life shall be
resolved into worship and praise.

4. The last and strongest argument is professedly based
upon what we all admit to be the highest authority beyond which
there is no appeal. Christ and St. Taul, it is urged, give no
countenance to the Anglo-American theory, but deny the per-
petuity of the Sabbath law.* But if we keep in mind the gene-
ral relation of the Saviour to the law, as explained especially

* Matt. xii. 1-5, 10-12; Mark ii. 27; Luke xiii. 11-16, xiv. 2-6; John
v. 16, ix. 14 ; Rom. xiv. 5, 6; Col. ii. 16; Gal. ir. 9, 10.

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in the Sermon on the Mount,* we cannot for a moment suppose
that He should have shaken the authority of any of God’s com-
mandments, the least of which he declared to be more enduring
than heaven and earth. The passages so often quoted are
not aimed at the Sabbath which the Lord hath made, but at
the later Jewish perversion of it. They in no wise oppose the
proper observance of the Sabbath by works of divine worship
and charity, but the negative, mechanical, self-righteous, and
hypocritical Sabbatarianism of the Pharisees, who idolized the
letter and killed the spirit of the law, who strained at a gnat
and swallowed a camel, who exacted tithe from the smallest
produce of the garden, and neglected the weightier matters of
the law, judgment, mercy, and faith; who, like whited sepul-
chres, appeared beautiful without, but within were full of dead
men’s bones, and of all uncleanness. Wherever the Christian
Sabbath is observed in the same spirit, it is an abuse of God’s
ordinance, and falls, of course, under the same condemnation
as the Jewish Sabbatarianism of the days of Christ. Christ is
indeed “Lord of the Sabbath day.”f But in the same sense
he is Lord of all the commandments, as the lawgiver is above
the law. He is also Lord of life, and yet never weakened the com-
mandment, “Thou shalt not kill,” but sharpened and deepened
it by condemning even the hatred of the heart against our
neighbour as murder before God. He uniformly set an exam-
ple of the right observance of the Sabbath by devoting it to
works of worship and charity. He emphatically declared the
Sabbath to be made for the benefit of man. J He exhorted his
disciples, in the extremities of the last days, to pray that
their flight be not on the Sabbath day, lest they might be
tempted to desecrate it. § And as to St. Paul, it is certain
that while he opposed the Jewish Sabbath and the Judaizing
mode of its observance, he observed the Christian Sabbath
by acts of worship, || and enjoined its observance by acts of
charity upon his congregations.** St. John, the bosom dis-
ciple of Christ, the apostle, evangelist, and seer of the New
Testament, has sufficiently defined his position on the Sabbath

* Matt. y. 17-19. f Matt. xii. 8; Mark ii. 28. J Mark ii. 27.

§ Matt. xxiv. 20. || Acts xx. 7. ** 1 Cor. xvi. 2.

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question by conferring upon the first day of the week the high
distinction of the Lord's Day.* The apostles in retaining
without dispute the divinely established weekly cycle, neces-
sarily retained also the Sabbath, which constitutes and com-
pletes the week, and which ceased no more than the weeks to
run their ceaseless round. The universal religious observance
of Sunday, which we find in the Christian church east and west
immediately after the apostles, would be an inexplicable his-
torical mystery w ithout the preceding practice and sanction of
the apostles. We conclude, therefore, that they regarded the
Sabbath, as it was intended to be, as a perpetual sign between
Jehovah and his people. f

3. Characteristics and advantages of the Anglo-American Theory.

The Anglo-American theory, whatever maybe its theoretical
merits, has undoubtedly, for all practical purposes for which
the Sabbath was instituted, many and great advantages over
the Continental European theory, whether it base the Sabbath
merely on ecclesiastical authority and custom, or rise higher by
deriving it from Christ and the apostles.

1. The Anglo-American theory goes back to the primitive
Sabbath of the race, given to man as man. It plants it deeply
in the original constitution of man and in the order of na-
ture. This is of the utmost importance as a basis for all the
temporal benefits of the Sabbath, and for an appeal to utilita-
rian considerations which must be allowed to have their proper
weight upon the world at large, especially on those who cannot
be reached by the higher moral and religious considerations.
“For godliness is profitable unto all things, and has a promise
for this life as well as for that which is to come.”

Experience, which speaks louder than argument, comes to
the aid of our theory by. furnishing abounding proof that the
Sabbath rest is favourable and necessary to the body as well as
the soul, to the preservation and promotion of health, wealth,

* Rev. i. 9.

f Exod. xxxi. 17 : “It is a sign between me and the children of Israel for
ever.” Sept, axjuucv Alnot.) The reason assigned goes back signifi-

cantly to the primitive order, “For in six days,” etc. Gen. ii. 2. Comp.
Ezek. xx. 12, 20.

The Anglo-American Sabbath. 11

and the temporal happiness and prosperity of individuals and
communities. >

It is an undeniable fact that the two nations which keep the
Sabbath most strictly — Great Britain and the United States —
are the wealthiest and the freest on earth. The philosophy
of this fact is plain. Sabbath-rest is the condition of success-
ful week-labour for man and beast, and successful labour is the
parent of wealth. The proper keeping of the Sabbath, more-
over, is one of the best schools of moral discipline and self-
government, and self-government is the only ground on which
rational and national freedom can rest and be permanently
maintained.

2. The Anglo-American theory retains the legal basis of the
Sabbath, by teaching the perpetuity of the fourth command-
ment. It thus secures to the Sabbath the authoi'ity of the
divine lawgiver, which attaches to all other parts of the deca-
logue, and appeals to the conscience of man. It raises it far
above the sphere of mere expediency and temporal usefulness
into the sphere of moral duty and sacred obligation. It can
enforce it by an irresistible, “ Thus saith the Lord.” By
strengthening the decalogue in one member we strengthen all
the other members, and promote the general interests of
morality; while the ecclesiastical and evangelical theories, so
called, by taking out the fourth commandment as a mere tem-
porary arrangement, destroy the completeness and harmony of
the decalogue, and tend to undermine its general authority.
The Anglo-American theory here has an exegetical as well as
a practical advantage over the others, as on it alone can the
place of the Sabbath in th o moral law be satisfactorily explained
and vindicated.

3. By placing the fourth commandment on a level with the
other commandments, and bringing it especially into close con-
tact with the fifth, which enjoins obedience to parents, and with
the seventh commandment,' which condemns all unchastity in
thought, word, and deed, the Anglo-American theory acknow-
ledges the inseparable connection between the strict observance
of the Sabbath and the moral welfare and happiness of the
family. The Sabbath and the family are the two oldest insti-
tutions of God on earth, both date from paradise, both look

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towards the happiness of man, both flourish and decay to-
gether. What God has joined together no man should dare to
put asunder.

4. The Anglo-American theory makes more account of the
distinction between the religious and the civil Sabbath than
the Continental, and lays greater stress on the necessity of the
latter. It regards the civil Sabbath as essential for public
morals and the self-preservation of the state. Hence our Sab-
bath laws, throughout the land, which militate as little against
religious freedom and the separation of church and state, as
the laws upholding monogamy. On the contrary, they are a
support to our civil and political freedom. For freedom with-
out law is licentiousness and ruin to any people. Our separa-
tion of church and state rests on mutual respect and friendship,
and is by no means a separation of the nation from Chris-
tianity. The religious Sabbath cannot, and ought not to be
enforced by law ; for all worship and true religion must be the
free and voluntary homage of the heart. But the civil Sab-
bath can and ought to be maintained and protected by legisla-
tion, and a Christian community has a natural right to look to
their government for the protection of their Sabbath as well as
for the protection of their persons and property. All good
citizens can rally around the support of the civil Sabbath from
moral and patriotic motives, whatever may be their religious
opinions. Such cooperation is not possible on the Continent of
Europe, where church and state are inextricably mixed up.

5. But while we hold fast to all these great characteristics
and advantages, let us never lose sight of the fact that the
Sabbath is gospel as well as law, and its observance a privilege
as well as a duty. It is law to all citizens, gospel to the
believers. If we insist exclusively or chiefly upon the legal
element, we are in danger of relapsing into Jewish Sabbatarian-
ism, and make its observance a burden instead of a joy. Its
advent will then not be hailed but dreaded, especially by the
youth, and the way be prepared for a successful reaction, which
would sweep away both the evangelical and the legal, the reli-
gious and the civil Sabbath, with all its great blessings, from
our midst. There is a false legalism as well as a false evan-
gelism, and we must keep equally clear from both extremes.

The Anglo-American Sabbath.

13

4. History of the Sabbath.

The Christian Sabbath, like every other institution and arti-
cle of faith, has its history — a history full of instruction, warn-
ing, and precept. It is intertwined with all the fortunes of
Christianity. It was frequently obscured, but never abolished
at any period, or in any part of the church, except during the
mad days of the reign of terror in France, and even this excep-
tion only furnished the negative proof for its indispensable
necessity as a safeguard for all public and private morality.
With one insignificant exception, it is held in common by all
Christian denominations, from the oldest to the youngest, from
the largest to the smallest.

The Sabbath before the Reformation.

For the first three centuries, when the church was an illegal
sect, and persecuted by the state, Sunday was a purely reli-
gious institution. With Constantine the Great, the first Roman
emperor who professed Christianity, it became a civil institu-
tion, recognised and protected by the laws of the state. Civil
legislation, it is true, cannot enforce the sanctification, but it
can prevent, to a great extent, the public desecration of Sun-
day; it cannot and ought not to be coercive and injunctive,
but prohibitive and protective. Constantine and his successors
prohibited lawsuits and pleadings, theatrical amusements, and
physical labour on Sunday, and thus enabled all their Chris-
tian subjects to observe the day without disturbance and hin-
drance.

The Christian Sabbath continued ever since, without inter-
ruption, as a religious and civil institution in all Christian
lands. But its authority and observance was greatly under-
mined during the middle ages by the endless multiplication of
holy days ; each day of the calendar being devoted to the
memory of some saint and martyr. This was, at best, a pre-
mature anticipation of an ideal state of the future world, when
the life of the Christian will be one uninterrupted festival of
joy and peace. But the arrangement, in its practical effect on
the people, almost inevitably tended to obliterate the distinc-
tion between Sunday and the week days, between a day of rest
and the days of labour, between one holy day of divine appoint-

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ment and the many holidays of human invention, to promote
idleness, the worship of saints, and all manner of superstition,
and to obscure the merits of Christ by interposing an army of
subordinate mediators and idols between him and his people.
We all know to what a fearful extent this perversion and con-
sequent desecration of the Lord's day still prevails all over the
Continent of Europe, especially in Roman Catholic countries.

Thr Sabbath since the Reformation.

We might expect that the Reformation of the sixteeenth
century should have remedied the evil and revived the primi-
tive purity of the Sabbath as well as of the general system of
Christianity, on the basis of the infallible word of God. Luther,
Zwingle, Calvin, and Bucer at first favoured the abolition of all
holidays with the exception of the Lord’s day. But their gene-
ral antagonism to the Judaizing legalism and ritualism of Rome,
their zeal for evangelical freedom, and their imperfect under-
standing of the well known words of Christ and Paul against
the negative Sabbatarianism of the Pharisees, prevented the
reformers from attaining to the proper view of the authority
and perpetuity of the fourth commandment. This is especially
true of Luther, who sometimes represents the whole law of
Moses as abolished, and says of the Sabbath, “ Keep it holy
for its use’s sake both to body and soul ; but if anywhere the
day is made holy for the mere day’s sake, if anywhere any one
sets up its observance upon a Jewish foundation, then I order
you to work on it, to ride on it, to dance on it, to feast on it,
to do anything that shall reprove this encroachment on the
Christian spirit and liberty.” But Luther must never be
judged from a single sentence, but be allowed to interpret him-
self. In other places he represents the observance of Sunday
as “good and necessary,” and in opposition to the antinomian
views of Agricola, he defends the law of Moses as still binding
upon Christians. “He who pulls down the law,” he correctly
remarks, “pulls down at the same time the whole framework of
human polity and society. If the law be thrust out of the
church, there will no longer be anything recognized as a sin in
the world, since the gospel defines and punishes sin only by
recurring to the law.” Had the reformers foreseen the base

15

The Anglo-American Sabbath.

use which has been made of their free expressions on the sub-
ject, they would have been far more cautious and careful.

There has been no radical reform of the Sabbath on the
Continent of Europe since the Reformation, but rather a fear-
ful progress of Sabbath-desecration in inseparable connection
with a growing neglect of public worship. This crying evil
forms one of the greatest obstacles to the spread of vital reli-
gion among the people, and can never be successfully over-
come except on the basis of a stricter theory on the Sabbath,
than that which generally prevails in the greater part of the
old world.

The Sabbath in England and Scotland.

It was different in Great Britain. The Church of Scotland
was the first among the churches of the Reformation to set the
example of a more sacred observance of the Lord’s day than
had been customary since the days of the apostles. She took
from the beginning a somewhat radical position against all the
annual festivals of the church, even the ancient commemoration
days of the birth, passion, and resurrection of our Saviour, and
the outpouring of the Holy Ghost, which are certainly innocent
in themselves, and may be observed with great benefit to the
people. But the loss in this respect was a gain to the weekly
commemoration-day of the risen Redeemer. The First Book
of Discipline, which was drawn up by John Knox and five
other ministers, abolishes Christmas, circumcision, and Epi-
phany, “because they have no assurance in God’s word,” but
enjoins the observance of Sunday in these words: “The Sab-
bath must be kept strictly in all towns, both forenoon and
afternoon, for hearing of the word; at afternoon upon the Sab-
bath, the Catechism shall be taught, the children examined,
and the baptism ministered. Public prayers shall be used
upon the Sabbath, as well afternoon as before, when sermons
cannot be had.” The third General Assembly, which met in
June, 1562, resolved to petition the queen for the punishing of
Sabbath-breaking, and all the vices which are to be punished
according to the law of God, and yet not by the law of the
realm. The Assembly of June, 1565, mentions the breaking

16

The Anglo-American Sabbath.

of the Sabbath day among “the horrible and detestable crimes”
which ought to be punished.

Yet, after all, this was only an approach towards the right
view and practice which now prevails in Great Britain. Theo-
retically John Knox did not differ from his admired friend and
teacher, Calvin, on the subject of the Sabbath, and the Scotch
Confession of Faith, which he with five others prepared in 1561,
makes no express mention of the fourth commandment. The
proper Anglo-American theory and practice dates from the
closing years of Queen Elizabeth’s reign, and took its rise in
the Puritan party of the Church of England. It was first
clearly and fully set forth in a work of Nicholas Bownd, D.D.,
a graduate of Cambridge, and minister of Norton, in Suffolk,
which appeared in 1595, and in an enlarged form in 1606,
under the title, “ The Doctrine of the Sabbath , plainely layde
forth and soundly proved,” etc.* This book learnedly labours
to show from the Scripture, the Fathers, and the Reformers,
that the observation of the Sabbath is not a bare ordinance of
man, or a merely civil or ecclesiastical constitution appointed
only for polity, but an immortal commandment of Almighty
God, and therefore binding on man’s conscience; that the Sab-
bath was given to our first parents; that it was revived on
Mount Sinai by God’s own voice, with a special note of remem-
brance, fortified with more reasons than the other precepts,
and particularly applied to all sorts of men by name; that the
apostles by the direction of God's Spirit, changed the day from
the seventh to the eighth, (first,) which we now keep in honour
of redemption, and which ought still to be kept by all nations
to the end of the world, because we can never have the like
cause or direction to change it; that the Sabbath should be spent
altogether in God’s service, in public and private worship, in
works of necessity and charity, while we should carefully abstain

* For a fuller account of this work, and the [controversy to which it gave rise,
we refer to James Gilfillan’s book. The Sabbath viewed in the light of Reason,
Revelation, and History , 1862, republished by the American Tract Society and
the New York Sabbath Committee, 1863, pp. 66, etc. Dr. Bownd wrote, besides
the Doctrine of the Sabbath, three other works, viz., The Holy Exercise of
Fasting, (1604,) A Storehouse of Comfort for the Afflicted in Spirit, (1604,) and
The Unbelief of Thomas, the Apostle , laid open for Believer, (1608.)

The Anglo-American Sabbath. 17

from all the ordinary works of our calling, and avoid whatever
withdraws our heart from the exercises of religion ; and that
magistrates and princes ought to provide for the observation of
the fourth commandment, and compel the people to at least an
outward rest, as well as to the keeping of the commandments
against murder, adultery, theft, and slander.

The treatise of Dr. Bownd produced a great sensation. “It
is almost incredible,” says Thomas Fuller, the English histo-
rian,* “ how taking this doctrine was, partly because of its own
purity, and partly from the eminent piety of such persons as
maintained it, so that the Lord’s day, especially in corpora-
tions, began to be precisely kept, people becoming a law to
themselves, forbearing such sports as yet by statute permitted;
yea, many rejoicing at their own restraint therein. On this
day the stoutest fencer laid down the buckler, the most skilful
archer unbent his bow, counting all shooting besides the mark ;
May-games and Morish-dances grew out of request, and good
reason that bells should be silenced from gingling about men’s
legs, if their very ringing in steeples were adjudged unlawful;
some of them were ashamed of their former pleasures, like
children which, grown bigger, blushing themselves out of their
rattles and whistles. Others forbear them for fear of their
superiors, and many left them off out of a polite compliance,
lest otherwise they should be accounted licentious. Yet learned
men were much divided in their judgments about these Sabbata-
rian doctrines. Some embraced them as ancient truths conso-
nant to Scripture, long disused and neglected, now seasonably
revived for the increase of piety. Others conceived them
grounded on a wrong bottom, but because they tended to the
manifest advance of religion, it was pity to oppose them, seeing
none have just reason to complain being deceived into their
own good. But a third sort flatly fell out with these positions,
as galling men’s necks with a Jewish yoke, against the liberty
of Christians : that Christ, as Lord of the Sabbath, had removed
the rigour thereof, and allowed men lawful recreations; that
the doctrine put an unequal lustre on the Sunday, on set pur-
pose to eclipse all other holy days to the derogation of the
church; that the strict observance was set up out of faction to

* As quoted by Gilfillan, p. 69.

3

18

The Anglo-American Sabbath.

be a character of difference, to brand all for libertines who did
not entertain it.”

The new theory of the Sabbath, like every great movement
in history, had to encounter considerable opposition, and gave
rise to the first Sabbatarian controversy in the Christian church.
But it was ably defended by Greenham, bishop Babington,
Perkins, Dod, bishop Andrewes, Dr. Willet, and many others,
and soon worked its way into the heart of the English and
Scotch people. When in 1G03, at the Commencement of the
University of Cambridge, the thesis, Dies Dominicus nititur
Verbo Dei , was publicly maintained, no member of the Univer-
sity put up an antithesis in opposition to it. Dr. Twisse, the
Moderator of the Westminster Assembly, gives it as his opinion
that if the votes of the bishops of England were taken, the
major part would concur with the Puritans as touching the
doctrine of the Sabbath, rather than against them. The judi-
cious Hooker, whose name is revered by all parties in the
Church of England, says: “We are to -account the sanctifica-
tion of one day in seven a duty which God’s immutable law
doth exact for ever.” The Book of Common Prayer bears
strong witness to the perpetuity of the fourth commandment,
and its binding character upon the Christian conscience, by
requiring to each of the ten commandments the response of the
people, “ Lord, have mercy upon us, and incline our hearts to
keep this law.” The Puritan theory on the Sabbath penetrated
like leaven the churches of England and Scotland, and the
strict observance of that day is one of the permanent effects
which Puritanism left upon the Anglican church and all its
dependencies.

This doctrine was permanently embodied in the Westminster
standards, the Confession of Faith, the Larger and Shorter
Catechism, and was thus clothed with symbolical authority for
all the churches which embraced these standards. The “ West-
minster Confession of Faith” gives this clear and strong state-
ment of the doctrine:*

“As it is the law of nature, that, in general, a due proportion of time be set
apart for the worship of God; so in his word, by a positive, moral, and perpetual
commandment, binding all men in all ages, he hath particularly appointed one
day in seven for a Sabbath, to be kept holy unto him; which, from the begin-
ning of the world to the resurrection of Christ, was the last day of the week :
and from the resurrection of Christ, was changed into the first day of the week.

* Ch. xxi. sect. 7, 8.

The Anglo-American Sabbath. 19

which in Scripture is called the Lord's Day, and is to be continued to the end of
the world as the Christian Sabbath.

“This Sabbath is then kept holy unto the Lord, when men, after a due pre-
paring of their hearts, and ordering of their common affairs beforehand, do not
only observe an holy rest all the day from their own works, words, and thoughts
about their worldly employments and recreations: but also are taken up the
whole time in the public and private exercises of his worship, and in the duties
of necessity and mercy.”

This is the doctrine of the "Westminster Assembly, which,
next to the Synod of Dort, is unquestionably the most impor-
tant ecclesiastical Synod held in the history of the Reformed
Church, and adorned by such distinguished scholars and divines
as Lightfoot, Ga taker, Twisse, Henderson, Rutherford, Wallis,
Reynolds, and Selden. On this point there was no dispute
between the Independents and Presbyterians. In Scotland the
Westminster standards were at once received, and have been
adhered to ever since by all the various branches of Scotch
Presbyterianism. The Secession church, the Relief church, the
Reformed Presbyterian church, the United Original Seceders,
and the Free church, agree with the Established church of
Scotland, in holding the Westminster doctrine on the Sabbath.

This doctrine, it must be admitted, goes beyond that of any
other symbolical book or confession of faith previously issued in
the Christian church. But it is none the less true and scriptural
in all its essential features. It is one of the noblest contribu-
tions which Great Britain has made to the cause of evangelical
truth and piety. Far from being a relapse, it is a real pro-
gress in the cause of Christianity and civilization. But a
progress on the rock of the Bible: for all true growth in
ecclesiastical history is not a growth beyond Christ, but a
growth in Christ, and a deeper apprehension and fuller appli-
cation of his Spirit, word, and work. We now see the doctrine
of justification by faith in every epistle of St. Paul; and yet it
was only in the Reformation of the sixteenth century that it
was clearly brought out from the mines of the Bible. So we
are better prepared now to understand and appreciate the
whole Scripture doctrine of the Sabbath, than the church was
before the sixteenth century. We have the great test of an
experience of more than two hundred years to assist us in
taking the right view.

The whole world knows the striking difference between the
Continental and the British Sabbath; and every impartial
Christian observer must admit the superiority and incalculable

20

The Anglo-American Sabbath.

benefits of the latter, in the promotion of every public and
private virtue. Even the freedom, wealth, and political great-
ness of England and Scotland may, to a considerable extent,
be traced to the strict observance of the Lord’s Day. Let us
quote but one testimony, and that of a Frenchman, and a
zealous Roman Catholic. “Impartial men,” says the celebrated
Count Montalembert, “are convinced that the political educa-
tion by which the lower classes of the English nation surpass
other nations — that the extraordinary wealth of England, and
its supreme maritime power — are clear proofs of the blessing of
God bestowed upon this nation for its distinguished Sabbath
observance. Those who behold the enormous commerce of
England, in the harbours, the railways, the manufactories, etc.,
cannot see without astonishment the quiet of the Sabbath-
day.”

The Sabbath in New England.

It is one of the peculiar marks of divine favour to America,
that its foundations are deeply laid in religion, and that the
Sabbath, as observed in Scotland and England from the begin-
ning of the seventeenth century, was one of the most cherished
institutions of the fathers and founders of our Republic. The
history of New England commences with the famous politico-
religious covenant of the Pilgrim Fathers, signed on board the
Mayflower, on the day of its arrival in Cape Cod harbour, on
the 11th of November, 1620, which laid the foundation for
independent, voluntary, democratic self-government in church
and state, and was solemnly inaugurated, on the day following,
by the strict observance of a Puritan Sabbath. During the
following weeks of anxious and dangerous explorations for a
safe harbour and settlement on terra firma, nothing could pre-
vent the Pilgrims from spending every Sabbath in religious
retirement, which invigorated them for the severe work of the
week. And when, on the ever-memorable 22d of December
(new style, or December 11, old style,) they landed on Ply-
mouth Rock, not even the pressing necessities of physical food
and protection, nor the cry of some Indian savages, who
threatened, as they thought, with an assault, could induce them
to break the first Sabbath in their future home. “They were
still without the shelter of a roof. At the sharp winter solstice
of New England, there was but

The Anglo-American Sabbath.

21

‘A screen of leafless branches
Between them and the blast.’

But it was the Lord’s hallowed time, and the work of building
must wait.”*

There this small congregation of pious emigrants, the
unconscious bearers of the hopes and destinies of a mighty
future, met far away from friends and kindred, in a new and
inhospitable clime, in dreary, cold December, on a barren
rock, threatened by roaming savages, under the stormy sky of
heaven, and, in the exercise of the general priesthood of
believers, offered the sacrifices of their broken hearts, and the
praises of their devout lips to their God and Saviour, on his
own appointed day of rest. The Pilgrims were first true to God,
and therefore true to themselves, and true to the world. They
made religion the chief concern of life, and regarded the glory
and enjoyment of God the great end of man, to which every-
thing else must be subordinate. They reasoned, and reasoned
correctly, that all lower goods are best secured by securing the
highest. They first sought the kingdom of God and his right-
eousness, well assured that all other things necessary would be
added unto them. They knew that the fear of the Lord was
the beginning of all wisdom. Their constant sense of depend-
ence on God made them feel independent of men. Being the
faithful servants of Christ, they became the true freemen, and
the fathers and founders of a Republic of self-governing sove-
reigns.

The noble example of the Pilgrim fathers was followed by
all the Puritan immigrants from Old to New England. The
strict observance of the Lord’s day was a universal custom in
all New England from the beginning, and has continued with-
out interruption to the present day. It was there ably
defended in sermons and tracts, from time to time, by the most
distinguished divines, as Jonathan Edwards, President Timothy
Dwight, Dr. Humphrey, Dr. Justin Edwards, who have en-

<

* See Palfrey’s History of New England. Boston. 1859. Yol. I., p. 173.
This first Puritan Sabbath on the American continent fell on the 24th of
December. On Monday the 25th, being Christmas, all were busy felling,
sawing, riving or carrying timber. “No man rested all that day,” which they
regarded as of purely human invention. Iu this opposition to annual festivals
in honour of Christ, and to the whole idea of a church-year, the Puritans
evidently went too far. But we may readily excuse their weakness, in view
of their eminent services to the Lord’s Day.

The Anglo-American Sabbath.

riched the Sabbath literature by contributions of abiding value.
It is there interwoven with the whole structure of society — it
enters into the sanctuary of every family, it is identified with
the earliest and most sacred recollections of every man, woman,
and child. The strictness of the New England Sabbath is pro-
verbial, and has only its equal in the Scotch Sabbath. In
former days it was no doubt frequently carried to excess, and
observed more in the spirit of Jewish legalism than of Christian
freedom ; but along with these excesses went the innumera-
ble blessings of the day. Its strict observance was an essen-
tial part of that moral discipline which made New England
what it is to-day, and is abundantly justified by its fruits,
which are felt more and more throughout the whole Christian
world.

It is unnecessary, even in these days of sectional prejudice,
party animosity, and slander, to say one word in praise of
New England. Facts and institutions always speak best for
themselves. We might say with Daniel Webster, giving his
famous eulogy on Massachusetts a more general application to
her five sister States: “There they stand: look at them, and
judge for yourselves. There is their history, the world knows
it by heart: the past at least is secure.” The rapid rise and
progress of that rocky and barren country called New England,
is one of the marvels of modern history. In the short period
of two centuries and a half it has attained the height of modern
civilization, which it required other countries more than a
thousand years to reach. Naturally the poorest part of the
United States, it has become the intellectual garden, the busy
workshop, and the thinking brain of this vast republic. In
general wealth and prosperity, in energy and enterprise, in
love of freedom and respect for law, in the diffusion of intelli-
gence and education, in letters and arts, in virtue and religion,
in every essential feature of national power and greatness, the
people of the six New England States, and more particularly
of Massachusetts, need not fear a comparison with the most
favoured nation on the globe.*

* Dr. Robert J. Breckinridge, of Kentucky, in a patriotic letter to the Hon.
Robert C. Winthrop, dated June 25, 1863, thus speaks of New England: “It
may be the will of God that the most dreadful changes await our country. If
the very worst comes, I look that true and regulated liberty will perish last in
New England. In past years I have spoken freely in disapprobation of much

The Anglo-American Sabbath.

23

But the power and influence of New England, owing to the
enterprising and restless character of its population, extends
far beyond its own limits, and is almost omnipresent in the
United States. The twenty thousand Puritans who emigrated
from England within the course of twenty years, from 1620 to
1640, and received but few accessions until the modern flood
of mixed European immigration set in, have grown into a race
of many millions, diffused themselves more or less into every
State of the Union, and take a leading part in the organization
and development of every new State of the great West to the
shores of the Pacific. Their principles have acted like leaven
upon the whole lump of American society; their influence
reaches into all the ramifications of our commerce, manufac-
tures, politics, literature, and religion; there is hardly a Pro-
testant church or Sabbath-school in the land, from Boston to
San Francisco, which does not feel, directly or indirectly, posi-
tively or negatively, the intellectual and moral power which
constantly emanates from the classical soil of Puritan Chris-
tianity.

The Southern enemies of our government, who in former
years resorted to New England institutions for an education,
acknowledge this fact by applying the term Yankee reproach-
fully to the whole people of the North. But it is rather a
term of honour, of which no one need be ashamed. The New
Englanders have their idiosyncracies and faults, like every
people under the sun, and are apt to run into extremes and all
sorts of isms in politics, philosophy, and religion; but they
have counterbalancing virtues of sterling value, which make
them a real blessing to the race. Wherever they go, they
carry with them their industry and enterprise, their love of
freedom and zeal for education, and, what is better than all,
their native, traditional reverence for God’s holy word and
holy day; and this, far from being a weakness, is one of the

that has been felt as an evil influence from New England, as it appeared to
me. But I never doubted — and now less than ever — that the roots of whatever
produces freedom, equality, and high civilization, are more deeply set in New
England than in any equal population on the face of the earth.” We are sure
that this noble testimony will be heartily responded to by thousands of Chris-
tians in the Middle, Western, and even the Southern States, who are able to
rise above the passions of the hour, and to subordinate their sectional and
denominational interests and preferences to truly national and catholic con-
siderations.

24

The Anglo-American Sabbath.

chief sources of their strength and prosperity, and an unspeak-
able benefit to the whole country. Let us never forget the
debt of gratitude which we owe to New England for the strict
observance of the Sabbath.

The American Sabbath.

But the Sabbath, in its strict observance, is by no means a
Puritan or New England institution simply: it is truly national
American; its sacredncss and influence is as wide as the conti-
nent from Maine to Georgia, and from the Atlantic to the
Pacific. It enters into the bone and sinew of the American
character. It is entrenched in our national habits, embodied
in our creeds, and guarded by our civil legislation. It is an
essential part of American Christianity and morality, and one
of the strongest common bonds which unite the different Pro-
testant denominations. The Episcopalian, whether high, or
low, or broad in his views of doctrine or policy, the Presbyte-
rian, both of the Old and New School, the Dutch Reformed,
the German Reformed, the Lutheran, the Methodist, the Bap-
tist, the Quaker, unite with the Puritan Congregationalist in
sacred zeal for the Lord’s day, and in abhorrence of its dese-
cration. The. venerable French scholar, Duponceau, after long
familiarity with America, made the remark, “that of all we
claimed as characteristic, our observance of the Sabbath is the
only one truly national and American, and for this cause, if for
no other, he trusted it would never lose its hold on our affec-
tions and patriotism.”

This was so, we may say, from the beginning of our nation.
The laws of every colony and State, with the single exception,
I believe, of Louisiana, which is owing to its French and
Roman Catholic origin, recognise this national sentiment, and
protect the Christian Sabbath against abuse and desecration.
A kind Providence has watched over our legislation in this
important matter with singular care. It was influenced by the
truly Christian and patriotic conviction of that eminent judge
of the Supreme Court of the United States, expressed in this
significant sentence: “Where there is no Christian Sabbath,
there is no Christian morality; and without this, free govern-
ment cannot long be sustained.” The earlier legislation of
New York, for instance, both under Dutch and English rule,

The Anglo-American Sabbath. 25

shows the profoundest respect for the civil Sabbath, and the
strongest conviction of its public utility and necessity.*
Legislation in a republican country like ours always reflects
and embodies the ruling sentiment of the community. It is
certainly so in this case. It has been asserted by one, espe-
cially competent to judge, by long and wide observation, f that
4iat least nine-tenths of the American-born population, and
probably a large majority of the foreign -born, esteem the Sab-
bath too sacred to be spent as a frivolous holiday. With trifling
exceptions, the Christian churches of every name regard the
Sabbath as a day to be kept holy unto the Lord, and to be
employed in acts of religious worship and charity: so that
millions of our citizens are grieved, and justly grieved, as they
think, by a systematic perversion of the day into a mere carni-
val of sensuous pleasure.”

It is true that the combined influences of the various denomi-
nations of non-Puritan descent, and the flood of the more recent
foreign immigration from Europe, have softened the rigour of
the Puritan Sabbath, especially in our large cities. But the
essential features remain unchanged in the heart of the people.
I know of no serious American Christian, of any evangelical
denomination, who would for a moment think of exchanging
the Anglo-American Sabbath theory and practice for that of
the Continent of Europe, or of Mexico, and Central, and South
America. All intelligent foreigners, too, who are not open
enemies of religion and virtue, after a few months or years of
observation in England, Scotland, or America, must see and
acknowledge the great superiority of our theory, at least, in all
its practical bearings and effects upon the individual, the family,
and the people. The foreign German population, for instance,
in two crowded mass meetings, held at Cooper Institute, New
York, the one in October, 1859, the other in March, 1861, have
given strong and emphatic testimony to the Anglo-American

* Here belong the Decrees and Ordinances of Peter Stuyvesant, 1647-8,
the Acts of the General Assembly of the Colony of New York, passed in 1695,
the laws of the State Legislature in 1813, the Municipal Ordinances, 1797-
1834, etc. They are conveniently brought together in the first published
document of the New York Sabbath Committee, under the title, “ The Sabbath
in New York.” New York. 1858.

f The indefatigable Secretary of the New York Sabbath Committee, the Rev.
R. S. Cook, in Doc. No. xi. p. 15.

4

26 The Anglo-American Sabbath.

Sabbath, and pledged to it their moral and material sup-
port.*

Our theory has stood the strongest of all tests, which the
Saviour requires in the words, “By their fruits ye shall know
them.” Even the excesses of strict Sabbath observance are
comparatively harmless, and infinitely less dangerous than the
opposite extremes of laxity. There has been much senseless
talk against the Judaizing legalism of American Sabbath-keep-
ing from a pseudo evangelical standpoint, which ignores the
world as it is, and radically misconceives the essential relation
of the gospel to holiness. Daily experience tells us that the
great mass of mankind needs the restraint of law as much as
ever. The law is still a schoolmaster to lead men unto Christ,
and true freedom is not freedom from law, but freedom in law.

Trials and triumphs of the American Sabbath.

The American Sabbath had its days of trial and temptation,
but so far it has manfully and successfully weathered the storm.

1. Its first great trial was the war of the Revolution. War,
whatever be its ultimate benefits, is proverbially demoralizing in
its immediate effects, by accumulating and intensifying the vices
of all classes of society. It is especially regardless of the
third and fourth commandments, under the convenient cover of

* Compare Documents No. ix and No. xvi. of the New York Sabbath Com-
mittee, which contain, in the German language, a full account of the two
memorable German mass meetings in Cooper Institute. We quote the resolu-
tions heartily and unanimously adopted by the first meeting, which was
attended by over fifteen hundred Germans.

“ Resolved , That we, as Germans, do solemnly protest against the perversion
of Sunday from a day of rest and devotion, into a day of noisy excitement and
dissipation, which is only too frequent among some of our German country-
men, and brings dishonour on the German name; and that we request our
fellow-citizens by no means to charge the fault of many upon the whole people
and upon Germany, where for many years past noble efforts are successfully
making towards the promotion of the better observance of Sunday.

“ Resolved , That we regard the strict observance of Sunday, which was
introduced into this country with the very first settlements of European immi-
grants, and has ever since been the common custom of the land, by no means
as a defect, but on the contrary, as a great advantage and blessing to America,
and we will cheerfully assist in keeping it up, and handing it down to future
generations.

“ Resolved , That in the Sabbath laws of this country, as they obtain in
nearly every State of our great republican confederacy, we see nothing that
conflicts with the cherished principles of civil and religious liberty; on the
contrary, we regard them as one of the strongest guarantees of our free insti-
tutions; as a wholesome check upon licentiousness and dissipation, and fts a
preventive of the pauperism and crime which must necessarily undermine
and ultimately destroy the liberty of any people.”

27

The Anglo-American Sabbath.

military necessity, and the old bad maxim, Inter arma silent
leges. But fortunately for the country, the commander-in-
chief and the father of this nation, who will ever stand “first
in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his country-
men,” was a God-fearing man, and issued, August 3, 1776, a
general order, which, from a lofty eminence above the passions
and strifes of the day, still speaks with telling effect to the ar-
mies of the North and of the South, solemnly protesting against
the kindred vices of Sabbath breaking and profanity, as follows:

“That the troops may have an opportunity of attending public worship, as
well as to take some rest after the great fatigue they have gone through, the
General, in future, excuses them from fatigue duty on Sundays, except at the
shipyards, or on special occasions, until further orders. The General is sorry to
bepnformed, that the foolish and wicked practice of profane cursing and swear-
ing, a vice hitherto little known in an American army, is growing into fashion.
He hopes the officers will, by example as •well as influence, endeavour to check
it, and that both they and the men will reflect that we can have but little hope
of the blessing of Heaven on our arms, if we insult it by our impiety and folly.
Added to this, it is a vice so mean and low, without any temptation, that every
man of sense and character detests and despises it.”*

When, after the successful termination of the war and the
achievement of our national independence, the federal Consti-
tution was formed for the permanent organization of our
Union, every thing was carefully avoided which might tend to
introduce the evils resulting from a union of church and state
in the old world — and that not from disrespect, but from respect
for religion, which was regarded by our fathers as too sacred to
be subjected to the contaminating influence of political interests
and secular control. Yet it is very significant and character-
istic that in this very document the authority of the Christian
Sabbath is incidentally acknowledged, by exempting it from the
working days of the chief magistrate of the country in the sig-
nature of the bills of Congress;! and this, with the Anno
Domini of the date, is the only express indication of the Chris-
tian origin of the magna charta of the American Union. Con-
gress has ever respected the national habit, and never meets on
Sundays, nor does the nation celebrate its birth-day on the
fourth of July when it happens to fall on the sacred day of rest.

2. More recently the American Sabbath had to encounter
another and more fearful danger, arising from the increasing
tide of foreign Sabbath desecration, with its accumulating crimes
* Sparks’ Writings of Washington, vol. iv. p. 28.

f Constitution of the United States of America, Art. I. Sect. 7: “If any bill
shall not be returned by the President within ten days ( Sundays excepted) after
it shall have been presented to him, the same shall be a law, etc.

28

The Anglo- American Sabbath.

and general demoralization. It culminated in Now York among
the teeming thousands of foreign residents of every nation and
tongue. A few years ago the anti-sabbath movement threat-
ened to sweep away the Sabbath alike from our statute books
and from our streets, and endangered not only the public
morals, but even the material interests of the whole commu-
nity. But just in the time of the greatest danger, in 1857, God
raised up the New York Sabbath Committee, and through their
quiet and unobtrusive, but faithful and persevering labours, saved
the Sabbath, shut the new flood-gates of drunkenness and crime,
restored order and security to the metropolis, secured the
cooperation of the better part of the foreign population,
enriched our Sabbath-literature by valuable tracts and sermons,
and so influenced the legislature and the judiciary of the
Empire State, that they not only maintained the old Sunday
laws, but committed themselves more strongly than ever in
favour of the maintenance of the civil Sabbath.* In everyone
of the successive suits for the violation of the Sunday theatre
act, the question was decided in favour of the constitutionality
of laws for the protection of the Christian Sabbath as a civil
and political institution, which in the State of New York, as in
all other States, exists as a day of rest, by common law, and
without the legislative action to establish it, so that all that the
legislature attempt to do in the Sabbath laws is to regulate its
observance and to protect it from desecration. The opinions
of the different courts on this controversy, especially the opinion

* Compare for details the Document .? of the New York Sabbath Committee,
published from 1858 to 1863, which will always fill an important place in the
history of the American Sabbath. Also an excellent article on the Perpetual
Observance of the Sabbath, partly in review of these documents, by Professor
Egbert C. Smyth, in the American Theological Review, for April, 1862, pp 298-
327. Prof. Smyth thus sums up the results of the labours of the New York Sab-
bath Committee : “ A score of Sunday theatres have been closed, the liquor
traffic greatly restricted, Sunday news-crying abolished, much useful labour
expended among the foreign population, documents in English and German
prepared and distributed in great numbers, a manifest advance secured in the
popular apprehension of the claims and benefits of the civil Sabbath, the legal
right of every man to a weekly season of repose and worship vindicated; and,
in brief, a Sunday characterized by traffic, noise, drunkenness, and vice, made
to give place to ‘a Sabbath marked by refreshing stillness and sobriety,’ and
an impulse given to similar reformatory movements in other large cities in this
country, and also across the Atlantic. Such results are a sufficient proof of
the wisdom and energy with which the efforts of the Committee have been
conducted. They shed light also upon the true method of prosecuting reform-
atory measures under a free government.”

29

The Anglo-American Sabbath.

of Judge Allen of the Supreme Court,* are extremely valuable
as a basis for all needful legislation, and a bulwark against future
attempts to overthrow or evade the laws of the land.

3. But our cherished institution had hardly been vindicated
from the deadly grasp of foreign enemies, when it had to face
a more dangerous domestic foe. The severest trial through
which the American Sabbath, in common with our whole
national Government and Union, with its principles of repub-
lican self-government, ever had to pass, or is likely to pass
in future, is the civil war which has now been raging with
increasing fury for more than two years. The desecration of
the Sabbath, together with profanity and intemperance, soon
after the outbreak of the war, increased at a most alarming
rate, and threatened the people with greater danger than the
rebellion itself. But fortunately there was an organization at
hand which understood its duty ; and rising from a metropoli-
tan to a national importance, elicited from the highest military
and civil authorities of the land a testimony in favour of the
Sabbath, even more explicit and direct than ever issued from a
professedly Christian government. f

Soon after assuming supreme command of the Army of the
Potomac, Major-General George B. McClellan issued the fol-
lowing admirable order :

(General Orders No. 7.)

“Head-quarters, Army or the Potomac, 1
Washington, Sept. 6, 1861. J

“The Major-General commanding desires and requests that in future there
may be more perfect respect for the Sabbath, on the part of his command. We
are fighting in a holy cause, and should endeavour to deserve the benign favour
of the Creator. Unless in the case of an attack by the enemy, or some other
extreme military necessity, it is commended to commanding officers, that all
work shall be suspended on the Sabbath; that no unnecessary movements shall
be made on that day; that the men shall, so far as possible, be permitted to rest
from their labours; that they shall attend divine service after the customary
Sunday morning inspection; and that officers and men shall alike use their
influence to insure the utmost decorum and quiet on that day. The General
commanding regards this as no idle form. One day s rest in seven is necessary
to men and animals, — more than this, the observance of the holy day of the
God of mercy and of battles is our sacred duty

“George B. McClellan,

Major-General Commanding.

“ Official: A. V. Colburn, Assistant Adjutant-General.”

* It is published in the Series of Fveports of the Supreme Court of New
York, and in an authorized abridgment, as Doc. No. XVIII. of the Series of
tbe Sabbath Committee.

f See Document No. XIX. of the New York Sabbath Committee, “A Piea
for the Sabbath in War.”

30

The Anglo-American Sabbath.

Still more important is the order of the President of the
United States, issued in consequence of an interview tvith a
deputation of the New York Sabbath Committee, which were
accompanied bv the Secretaries of War and the Navy, and
Rear-Admiral Foote, and introduced by Governor Morgan, of
New York.*

“Executive Mansion, Washington, Nov. 15, 1802.

“The President, Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy, desires and
enjoins the orderly observance of the Sabbath, by the officers and men in the
rqilitary and naval service. The importance for man and beast, of the pre-
scribed weekly rest, the sacred rights of Christian soldiers and sailors, a becom-
ing deference to the best sentiment of a Christian people, and a due regard for
the Divine will, demand that Sunday labour in the army and navy be reduced
to the measure of strict necessity. The discipline and character of the national
forces should not sulfer, nor the cause they.defend be imperilled, by the prola-
nation of the day or name of the Most High. ‘At this time of public distress,
adopting the words of Washington, in 1771, ‘men may find enough to do in the
service of God and their country, without abandoning themselves to vice and
immorality.’ The first general order issued by the Father of his Country, after
the Declaration of Independence, indicates the spirit in which our institutions
were founded and should ever be defended:

"'The General hopes and trusts that every officer and man will endeavour to
live and act as becomes a Christian soldier, defending the dearest rights and liber-
ties of his country.’ Abraham Lincoln. ’

These orders, which were read by millions of people on the
very day of their publication, and translated into the German,
French, and other tongues, have become part of our national
history, and will remain a precedent to our rulers as long as
our nation shall endure.

Thus God has overruled even the fearful profanation of the
Sabbath, for its defence, by those who represent and reflect his
authority in our land.

Conclusion.

But the danger is by no means overpast. Notwithstanding
the noble orders from the highest civil and military authorities
of the land, and the thrilling sermons of the Almighty God of
battles, there is still a most shocking amount of the kindred
vices of profanity and Sabbath-breaking in our army, which fills
every Christian and patriotic heart with sorrow and grief, and
makes it tremble for the future. Unfortunately too many of
our officers, even high in command, set the worst possible
example to the soldiers. Eternal vigilance is the price not
only of our liberty, but also of our Sabbath. Let all the friends
of the good cause lift up their hearts and stretch out their
hands for the rescue of one of the most conservative and

* See the facts of the interview, in Document No. XXIII.

31

The Anglo-American Sabbath.

benevolent institutions of the land. An immense work is
before them. Even after a successful military settlement of
the present gigantic struggle, there remains the still more diffi-
cult task of a political and social solution of our national
difficulties, and in this work of reconstruction, Christianity
and humanity, wisdom and charity, must take the lead. We
have every encouragement to labour in this cause. We have
on our side the laws of the land, the traditions of our fathers,
the national tastes and habits, the dearest interests of our
families and firesides, and the authority of God’s word, which is
more powerful than all armies and navies.

The Sabbath, like every institution of God intended for the
benefit of man, must be either a great blessing, or a great curse,
a savour of life unto life, or a savour of death unto death. This
is especially the case with us. We need the Sabbath more than
any other nation on earth. With us Christianity must stand
on its own independent merits, and be rooted and grounded in
the affections of a free people. It can never look to the
secular power for direct support. Hence the surpassing value
of pious national habits and customs, among which the reverent
observance of the Sabbath is one of the most important. It
stands not isolated and alone, but implies our most sacred
rights and privileges, and all the blessings which emanate from
public worship. Our energy and restless activity as a nation,
our teeming wealth and prosperity, and our very liberty, makes
the Sabbath a special necessity for us; for it is a powerful
check upon secularism and the degrading worship of the
almighty dollar, and upon radicalism and licentiousness, which
is death to all true freedom.

The loss of the Sabbath, with all its conservative, purifying
and ennobling influences, I do not hesitate to say, would be a
far greater disaster to our people North and South, than a
permanent separation of the Union — this cherished idol of
every loyal American heart. Take away the Sabbath, and you
destroy the most humane and most democratic institution which
in every respect was made for man, but more particularly for
the man of labour and toil, of poverty and sorrow. Take away
the Sabbath, and you destroy a mighty conservative force, and
dry up a fountain from which the family, the church, and the
state receive constant nourishment and support. Take away

32 The Anglo-American Sabbath.

the Sabbath, and you shake the moral foundations of our
national power and prosperity: our churches will be forsaken,
our Sunday-schools emptied, our domestic devotions will lan-
guish, the fountains of public and private virtue will dry up; a
flood of profanity, licentiousness, and vice, will inundate the
land; labour will lose its reward, liberty be deprived of its
pillar, self-government will prove a failure, and our republican
institutions end in anarchy and confusion, to give way, in due
time, to the most oppressive and degrading military despotism
known in the annals of history. Yea, the end of the Sabbath
would be for America the beginning of the unlimited reign of
the infernal idol-trinity of Mammon, Bacchus, and Venus,
and overwhelm us at last in temporal and eternal ruin.

But we confidently hope and believe that, under the protect-
ing care of the Lord of the Sabbath, and the watchfulness of his
people, it will survive the shock of this terrible civil war, and the
attacks of all its foreign and domestic foes. The Sabbath will
mitigate the horrors of war as long as it may last, and when it
shall have spent its fury and given way to an honourable and
lasting peace, it will be one of the means to remedy its evils, to
heal its wounds, to build up its desolations, to cement the
Union, and to regenerate the whole nation on a sound and per-
manent moral and religious foundation. It will continue its
weekly testimony to the world at large that our freedom rests
in law and order, that we are independent of human tyranny,
because we feel dependent on our God, and bow in sacred
reverence before the majesty and authority of the Lord of lords
and God of gods. It will continue to be one of our most cher-
ished and sacred traditions, an essential characteristic of Ameri-
can Christianity, an intellectual educator, a feeder of public
and private virtue, a school of discipline and self-government,
a pillar of civil and religious liberty, a bond of union among
all Christian denominations, and a “sign” between us and our
God as long as this nation shall endure. If we honour the Lord
of the Sabbath, he will honour us, sanctify and overrule our
present calamities for our own good, and make us a shining
light and example among the nations of the earth.

“Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord, and the peo-
ple whom he hath chosen for his own inheritance.”